Hundreds of volcanoes, some active like Hawaii, others long dead like Samoa and Bikini, poke above the blue waters of the wide Pacific. But these isla'nds don't begin to suggest the profusion of more than 10,000 submerged volcanic seamounts now knownto dot the Pacific sea floor. Many marine geologists have argued that these are the products of a dozen or so "hot spots," fixed sites of deep-seated volcanism that left a trail of seamounts as the oceanic plate moved over them. But these hot spots are often elusive, smoldering noticed beneath the sea floor or burned out long ago. Now two marine geophysi cists have come up with an elegant way to track them down.
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